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Sunday, August 16, 2009

So last night I went to my first non-Christian concert since the Go-Go's concert in the late 80s. Def Leppard/Poison/Cheap Trick came to a local amphitheatre. Let's jump back to the beginning of this saga...

Last Spring one of the teachers who is friends with Jeanmarie (the school's bookkeeper) sent an email saying that Poison and Def Leppard were coming to Atlanta. She knew I was an 80s band kind of girl. I sent an email saying how neat that was and that we ought to go together...not thinking about the fact that these people actually GO to concerts! :) So the next thing you know I'm part of a group of 6 women who are forking over $85 to get tickets when they came on-sale. I figured that it was the perfect 40th birthday present to myself.

Fast forward six months...I'm no longer in the office and the teacher who brought this up in the first place is at another school. But we all met up in the school's parking lot to drive together. Should have realized how auspicious this would be when some of the tickets were lost. Jeanmarie and the one teacher each bought 3 tickets (Ticketmaster would only you purchase 4 tickets at a time. They each bought 3 figuring we'd trade seats out with other concertgoers so we could sit together). Jeanmarie's dad passed away a week ago, so she gave her tickets to the other teacher in case she didn't make it back. And those were the tickets that came up missing. After about 45 minutes of angst and phone calls to the teachers family asking them to look through pocketbooks and gym bags and the family van, it was brought up that Ticketmaster would give us new tickets since JM bought them via credit card. So she called Ticketmaster and the cloud over the night magically lifted.

After an "interesting" drive to the amphitheatre, we found parking and got to see females using the parking lot as a restroom. (I ask you, what kind of friend lets you cop a squat out in the open without find a jacket or other way to block you from about 5,000 sets of eyes? Or at least points out a convenient patch of trees 10 yards away?) Hmmm...well, since the concert started at 7 and it was 7:02 when we parked, we threaded our way through the parking lot to the Will-Call window to pick up the rest of the tickets. The people-watching was in full swing and so was the boozing. Gotta question the choice of not only attire but shoes for those women who KNEW they would be getting plastered before they even walked (tottered, stumbled, whatever) through the gates.

Tickets in hand, we got through the line at the gate and found our seats. Cheap Trick had about 3 songs left in their set when we got there. We ended up being able to sit together because of empty seats. Funnily enough I saw a couple from the church. I knew they were going to be there, they ended up being 2 rows in front of me. Kind of glad they were in front of me instead of vice-versa cuz I'm well aware of what I look like when I dance. That kind of sight might irrevocably change the way they viewed their pastor's wife. Ha ha.

Cheap Trick ended and they had about a 10-15 window to set u for Poison. I gotta tell you, the Poison set was full of C.C. Deville. I like guitar, but hmmmm. However, that man should really give a shout-out to his dentist. His teeth are amazingly white! I could see his teeth almost better than anything else on the stage!

Def Leppard came out after a quick stagechange and the atmosphere got just electric. The hair on my arms stood out. I couldn't believe I was actually there doing the big-butt White girl dance, but I was. I'm truly surprised that my arms, legs and feet don't ache and I'm REALLY surprised that I actually have a voice!

As truly amazing as I found the concert and seeing these people LIVE that I've only seen on video, I gotta say that the concertgoers gave me almost as much of a show. There are a lot of people my age who really should know better than to drink as much as they do in a public area...especially dressed as they chose to do. You KNOW that in their heads they think they look goooooood and sexy and a heck of a lot younger than they are. The ladies behind me were taking pictures of bad outfit choices and shared them with us during one of the set changes (thankfully, we weren't in the mix) so I know I wasn't the only one thinking this. There were two couples sitting in the row in front of us that were the most, ahem, entertaining. They started the night as two distinct couples, the women slow dancing for the men or on the men, or turned around snuggled up to them...ick, ick, ick. Some time during the first couple Poison songs, the ladies traded off gentlemen and then traded back. Some time in the last couple Poison songs, both ladies managed to drop their beers. The two men looked at each other, threw back what was left in their beer cups and off they and the women went. The rest of of breathed easier (and didn't have to block that part of our peripherel vision anymore...MY EYES!) because Def Leppard was up next and we were all determined to enjoy every second of that set. Two songs in one couple (which was the same man/woman that left) came back. The man sat in a chair right in front of me and leaned back so that he was kind of laying down. The woman sat on his lap and performed a dunken lap dance followed by laying face up on the man as he proceeded to feel up her chest and she texted. They finally...finished (???) and got up to dance drunkenly together again. The other couple came back two songs before the end of D.L. set. Absolutely bizarre.

Def Leppard finished their set with Pour Some Sugar on Me and then came out and did Rock of Ages for their encore. Then it was time to try to get the six of us back to the car. We managed to get there really quickly (probably because we WEREN'T drunk and could weave in and out of bodies without falling over or getting dizzy). However, it took us 30 minutes from the time we got to the car until we hit the blacktop. Considering if the car had been pointing the other way we could have DRIVEN onto the laptop, that was pretty bad. But with Jeanmarie's master skills behind the wheel, we made it back to Conyers by 12:45 and I was in the house relating my night to Kenny.

Oh, and how did my husband take my girls night out? Well, his first text to me asked if I was stoned yet. ("Why yes I am" was my response even though the smoke that got blown in my face was strictly cigarette, no doobies anywhere I saw). He second text was "Do you still have your bra on? Which prompted Jeanmarie to ask if Kenny knew who I was with (My answer to Kenny was, "I hang down to my belly button without my bra...not exactly how to bring the sexy back!").

Right now, it's back to being something "not real" but I know I did it. I have my ticket and I have a couple blurry pictures I took on my phone. I also have some sneakers that smell like beer.

Now to talk Kenny into taking me to the Journey/Night Ranger concert in September! :)

Friday, August 14, 2009

So far my new job has mostly been answering the question, "how do you like your new job?" The answer is, "I don't know." I'm still pride-sore about being booted from my other one and get a secret nasty pleasure from leaving the front office when it is jam-packed with parents and whatnot and walking down the hall to the closet where my desk is and closing the door. I SHOULD jump in and help because I know very, VERY well how intense the front office is. But, then I figure, if the principal wanted me in the office, she would have kept me in the front office.

My new job is, in a nutshell, basically a computer troubleshooter. Now, ask me how much I know about computers. The answer to that is, um, not much! The way things were supposed to have worked is that I was supposed to have a full semester of training for this new position last year, but with the office as crazy as it is, desperately needing 3 people instead of 2 but instead of adding the 3rd person...that 3rd person replaced me, I didn't get any training. So now I kind of follow along behind the Instructional Technology Specialist (my supervisor) with notebook in hand and try to learn stuff as I go. Today she was out of the office in an all day meeting. Luckily I had inventory to take...I can check a computer for its tag number and mark it off on a piece of paper. Someone asked me to switch a CPU position for them, and I know how to unplug wires from a computer and plug them back in...match shape to shape and color to color!

I just wish I didn't feel so blasted unnecessary. All the stuff I'm doing the ITS could do, or a half-dozen other people could do. I even got pulled for lunch duty 2 days in a row because my job is so unnecessary.

Boy am I sucking lemons or what?!
But life happens and I'm, while not making the BEST of it, am at least showing up for work every day.